Is the burden of severe sepsis and septic shock changing?

摘要

Knowledge of the burden of a disease is important for setting priorities in healthcare services funding and allocation of research resources. In this issue of Critical Care Medicine, Gaieski et al (1) investigate the incidence and hospital mortality associated with severe sepsis and septic shock in the United States during 2004-2009. They utilized administrative data from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample database, which samples approximately 20% of hospitals in the United States. Four different, previously published definition algorithms and recently added International Classification of Diseases, 9th Edition (ICD-9), codes for severe sepsis and septic shock were applied and compared (2-5). They found wide variability in the calculated incidence rates and case-fatality rates depending on which definition was utilized.